We recently spent two weeks in the UK for a holiday, which unsurprisingly included a few birding trips.

Our first expedition took us north, almost to the border with Scotland to a coastal town called ‘Seahouses’.  It is from here that you can take boat trips out to the famous Farne Islands to see nesting colonies for some pelagic birds such as the Atlantic Puffins, Northern Gannets, Common Guillemots and Razorbills.

It was late May, we foolishly expected balmy temperatures of 20°C or more, so we packed lightly.

On the 26th May, we headed down to the harbor and awaited our boats departure. It was gloomy, windy and a bit cold (approx. 10°C), but a few Common Eiders and European Oystercatchers entertained us while waiting for the boat to pull up alongside the dock, together with a Shag or two (the bird variety).

Still waiting for the boat, the gloomy skies turned to rain, and then our open-topped boat arrived.

A cold, wet, wavy and miserable ride for about 45 minutes took us out to Staple Island.  We were cold and wet by the time we reached land, but luckily the rain eased off soon after arriving allowing us to use the bins and cameras.  

For non-National Trust members, there’s a landing fee of £6 per person, per island.

The moment we climbed the rocky steps up from the quay, we had Atlantic Puffins all around us.  Some just watching us, others leaping off the rocks and zooming out to sea.  They’re such gorgeous birds.

The Atlantic Puffin belongs to the Auk family.  Out of the breeding season they fly up to 100km off-shore to feed, but during this time of year when they’re feeding chicks, they’ll keep closer to the shore.

As you might know, they make great swimmers, capable of swimming underwater for up to 70 metres, collecting various fish and molluscs.  They are often seen with Sand Eels hanging out of their bills. They collect the fish individually and use their tongue to press the fish against a barb inside the bill holding it in place.

Puffins nest in burrows, and can be seen running around the grasslands and down into their holes to feed the young. A very comical sight.

Just moments after our lifer experience of the Puffins, we stood and watched hundreds of Common Guillemots (or Common Murre), also of the Auk family.  These birds breed in large colonies.  They can often be seen in large numbers floating on the water and diving down to catch their fish as they are well adapted to swimming underwater as per the Puffins.  Guillemots have been recorded to dive down to a staggering 180 metres, but on average, they dive to 30-60 metres.

Amongst the Guillemots can be found Razorbills.  These birds look like a cross between Guillemots and Penguins, although they are the only remaining species under the ‘Alca’ genus.

Razorbills, like the Guillemots and Puffins also land on the waters’ surface before diving below to catch their fish.  They eat their prey while underwater.

After studying these Auks for a while, we trudged on up the stony path in the freezing cold to see what else was about.  A few European Shags were perching on the rocks.  Shags are of the ‘Phalacrocorax’ genus, making them a cormorant. 

I can’t possibly begin to understand where the name came from and why Cormorant wasn’t adopted, as for my generation, the term ‘Shag’ implies something completely different (and more interesting).

The coloration of these birds is intriguing, a very oily/petrol green colour and they’ve got some fancy crest feathers giving them a slight punky look.

I was really struggling with the cold. I didn’t have any gloves and I found it really hard to operate the camera after a while.  It felt heavy and my fingers couldn’t operate the shutter release in time as they were stiffening.

While walking down to the quay, we noticed a small wader on the beach and it turned out to be a Common Ringed Plover.  This chap differs slightly to the Little Ringed Plover in both size, and the black band across the breast is thicker in the Common than the Little.

After about 1hr30m we jumped back on the boat and headed over to another island known as ‘Inner Farne’.

Straight after setting off from the island we were graced with the presence of a few Gray Seals (lifer).  They were quite curious to watch us as we were of them. Very cute faces, check out the little eye-brows and whiskers!

Tip: When visiting Inner Farne during the nesting season, be sure to wear a hat.

Inner Farne gave us an opportunity to get very close to Common, Sandwich and Arctic Terns.  It’s a strange thing to be able to walk amongst birds on nests that are only 1-2ft from where you are walking. 

Clearly, the birds aren’t particularly bothered by our presence as they continue to breed here year after year.  

OK, so how about that hat? Well, some of the Common Terns try to shoo you away while walking past their nests, so you can expect to have a Tern hovering above your head and a few pecks into your scalp until you move off.

This island has plenty of burrowing Puffins and Common Eiders on the grasslands. 

The Eiders are BIG ducks, between 50 and 70cm in length.  Their down feathers used for nesting are in some places still harvested (after fledging) for use in quilts/duvets/pillows.  If you’ve ever heard the term ‘Eiderdown’, then that’s what it is.

Something caught our eye amongst some of the stony areas and it turned out to be a Ruddy Turnstone. We've seen these in Malaysia, but often through a scope as they just don't like getting close to humans, however, on the Farne Islands, he wasn't so cautious and we managed to see him living up to his namesake, flipping up stones to find food beneath.

While we prayed for it to warm up, it just stayed gloomy and damp and cold, so the actual experience of being there was hampered by the crappy weather, however, the memories of it all are mainly of the birds.

The kick in the nuts was that when we arrived back on dry land, we looked over our shoulders to see that the clouds had gone and the islands were basking in glorious afternoon sunshine!

It’s a great place to visit, and if you ever find yourself in the UK and want to see the above birds, the best time is May-July (regardless of it being Summer, take warm clothes!!)

After our 2 days in Seahouses, we headed south to the balmy climates of North Yorkshire to a particularly awesome place known as Bempton Cliffs.

The cliffs are famous for colonies of nesting Northern Gannets, one of the 10 species of extant Boobies. You can also find Puffins, Guillemots, Razorbills and a particular favourite of mine, the Northern Fulmar.

Let’s start off with the Gannets.  These birds are awesome to see.  They cruise along the coastline at varying heights.  During the nesting season, they’ll bring food back to their chicks after locating their home amongst the thousands of other nesting pairs in the cliff face.  They have a very graceless landing style, more like a controlled crash landing.

Once at the nest, the adult pair will generally clack their bills together, probably as a gesture of something like

“where the hell have you been?, did you remember to get the fish?”

Actually, it looks quite affectionate.

Here's a pair.  The yellow tinge to the head and neck feathers implies breeding plumage.

The immature take around 5 years to get their full adult plumage, so in the case of this next shot, you can see a sub-adult with wing plumage that hasn’t fully turned black.

Bempton Cliffs is such an awesome place.  We were blessed with great weather.  It’s staggering to see how many thousands of birds are nesting amongst the cliff faces.

Photography was a little difficult as the cliffs face East and we were there in the morning, so for those birds cruising past the cliff face, we were often shooting into the light.

Other birds nesting amongst the Gannets, Puffins etc. were Black-legged Kittiwakes (it’s a Gull with a cooler name), and the Northern Fulmar.

Fulmars look like they belong to the Gull family, but are in fact Petrels.  Their bills are quite different and distinguished by their nostrils which are located on the top of the upper mandible, it’s made of horny plates and situated just above the nasal passage is a gland that secretes any excess salt that the bird will have ingested on it’s voyages.

I found the Fulmar to be quite an intriguing bird and was looking forward to be able to get a shot of him in flight. Wow, was it more troublesome than I expected.

First, the skies are filled with birds all the time.  It’s easy to pick out the Gannets, but when searching for Fulmars, you need to distinguish it in a fraction of a second from the Herring Gulls (including Juvs), Black-backed Gulls, and Kittiwakes. 

Once you’ve got the Fulmar in sight, he’s often either flying away from you out to sea, or coming back in again, so to get one doing a fly-by wasn’t easy.  I spent almost the whole morning trying and didn’t have much luck at all, however, within minutes of throwing in the towel to head back to the visitor centre for a coffee, I finally got one.  And here he is:

We then stopped off at Blacktoft Sands, East Yorkshire.  It’s an RSPB reserve consisting of tidal reedbeds.

No sooner had we paid our entry fee did we have a Western Marsh-harrier fly straight past us.

We had a pretty good afternoon of birding here with 21 species of birds seen and for the mammals, a lone European Hare in a field adjacent to the far end of the reserve.

There are hides positioned all around the reserve and in one particular pool we saw a few Pied Avocets. The flagship/bird of the RSPB, and as a bonus, some chicks. Very cute!

After walking around the reserve, we spotted the Marsh-harrier coming over again and I managed to get a few shots off.  We stood and watched it for a long time as it rose into the sky picking up a thermal (yes, a thermal in East Yorkshire!) almost reaching orbit before disappearing out of view.

I’ve not seen a Marsh-harrier get so high before.

So that brings us to the end of our first bird outing on this UK trip.

Individual birdlists can be found here;

Farne Islands

Bempton Cliffs

Blacktoft Sands

Click here to read our report on Bedfordshire, Paxton Pits and Chicksands Woods

Click here to read our report on Minsmere Nature Reserve

We based ourselves out of Bedfordshire which is somewhere about 80km north of London and did a bit of local birding throughout the two weeks holiday.Keeping it local to my parents place, Ravensden, we managed to clock up some great birds.  My parents use feeders in their garden so it's quite easy to get a good list of seed-eaters within a few minutes of watching them.

Out and about in the village we spotted a Little Owl perching on the end of a dead branch.

At first glance, the owl appeared to be part of the tree, meaning he looked like a stump at the end of the branch, easily missed, but on closer inspection, we could see the eyes glaring back at us.

Little Owls were introduced to the UK from Europe in 1842 and have done well in setting up their own populations ever since.

They nest in tree holes, nesting boxes or small holes in old buildings and spend most of the day just perching out in the open.

Whether you can see them or not is a different story. While we watched him, he hopped from one branch to another to have his photo taken.  They are so cute and he seemed ok that we were there watching him.  If they become agitated, they'll start bobbing their heads around, but he just remained still watching us.

Another bird we saw fairly frequently was the Red-legged Partridge.  Why can't Malaysian partridges be so confiding?

The Red-legged is a relatively timid bird, but as there are so many of them around, and they tend to dwell amongst road-side verges that border fields, it's quite easy to spot them.

The Red-legged Partridge (also known as the French Partridge) was also introduced into the UK from Europe as a game species, but as with the Little Owl, it has done extremely well in establishing itself in the UK countryside.We did spot a pair of Grey Partridges (or English Partridge) along a place known locally as 'Lovers Lane', yep, you can do the math on why it's called that!  

What were we doing there?......er.....

While having afternoon tea in my parents garden, we witnessed a Eurasian Sparrowhawk zoom through chasing a bird, but it all happened so fast I couldn't work out what it's intended prey was.

On the 31st May, we headed over to Little Paxton, a small village north of our home base where they have some dis-used gravel pits which have subsequently been converted into a nature reserve.

Our trip there produced a few highlights, the first being a European Turtle-dove, which is a fairly rare sighting in UK.  

Second up was a Eurasian Hobby that flew over, and the third was a Common Nightingale.

The nightingale is an Old World Flycatcher and is often heard in certain places throughout the UK, but rarely seen, but we were lucky and patient enough to wait for him to come out of the bush. He has an impressive repertoire of calls, from warbles and trills of varying notes.

We heard that some twitchers had recently come over from Wales to see it at Paxton!I only managed to get a couple of shots of him, as we spent most of the time searching through our bins.

While we were busy watching the nightingale, a European Robin was begging for attention just above our heads. Non-stop calling, he just wanted someone to take a look, so I broke away from the Nightingale for a minute or two to satisfy him.

After walking around some of the lakes, we jumped in the car and headed to the northern tip of the reserve, only accessable at the moment through a village called Diddington.

The park have aquired more land from the quarry company and will be working throughout the coming months to make it part of the park.

It's a pretty good place as waders like to hang around there.

We saw some Dunlin in their breeding plumage, but unfortunately just too far to photograph.  Recently they had some Spoonbills passing through, which is also a bonus (just not for us).

The park is surrounded by fields, so you can see a few Raptors flying around, such as the Common Buzzard, Common Kestrel and the Eurasian Hobby.

Our final local birding trip was to a place just north of Bedford town to a pine forest known as Chicksands Woods.  

The smell of the forest was like opening an IKEA furniture pack, it smelt lovely. Plenty of Eurasian Chaffinch's flying around and chirping away.  

I was quite surprised to have a Hedge Accentor perched on a branch in front of us, as I've only ever seen them around gardens before.

The forest was alive with Eastern Gray Squirrels all scampering around the place.

These squirrels were introduced from North America a long time ago, and as they have no real natural predators in the UK, they have prospered and displaced the local species, the Red Squirrel.  Programs are in place to try and control the populations of the Gray so that the Red Squirrel's numbers can recover. Hope it works as the Red Squirrels are beautiful little chaps, too bad I've not seen one in many years.

We spotted two varieties of Thrush, both the Song and the Mistle Thrush.  Not so easy to distinguish from each other, but with photos it's a little easier.

Here's the Song Thrush seen way up high in the pine trees having collected spiders possibly to take back to chicks.

And here's the Mistle Thrush (poor photo).  You'll notice from the front, that the Song Thrush has spots that resemble up-side down hearts, while the Mistle Thrush has similar spots only down to the breast. Below that, the spots are round blobs.

The Mistle Thrush also has a grayer back than the Song Thrush. 

Just coming out of the forest we saw a blob atop a distant dead tree.  We drove along the road to get closer, then had to abandon the car and trek alongside a field before getting a close enough view to see what he was. 

A Red Kite!

Long ago in the 1870's, Red Kites were persecuted to the point of extinction in the UK but thanks to the efforts of conservationists, since 1989, birds from Germany, Spain and Sweden have been introduced, and it seems the populations are on the up, currently England now has a population of around 910 breeding pairs.

I was so pleased to have got a shot of a perched Kite.  We had spotted a single Kite flying over my parents back garden just a few days prior, but only a blurry sillhouette shot to show for it.

Birding in the Bedfordshire area was pretty rewarding.  It probably doesn't differ greatly to any other South East England rural area, so birding throughout much of rural england should prove equally as fruitful should you have the opportunity to visit.

Bird lists for the above places are below:

Ravensden, Bedfordshire

Little Paxton, Cambridgeshire

Chicksands, Bedfordshire

Click here to read our trip report for Farne Islands, Bempton Cliffs and Blacktoft Sands

Click here to read our trip report for Minsmere Nature Reserve

Our final installment of bird outings in the UK took us to the county of Suffolk on the east coast of southern England to an RSPB wildlife reserve called 'Minsmere', near to the famous Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station.

Minsmere offers a variety of habitats, from woodland, open fields, reed beds and lagoons. A number of hides are positioned around the reserve to give you a chance to get good closer views to much of the wildlife.

The weather on this particular day, the 3rd June, was absolutely stunning. The temperature was a bit cool, but the sunshine more than made up for it. The skies were a crisp deep blue that remained unblemished by clouds for the entire day. It was incredible.

The downside to it all was the for the purpose of photography, it played havoc as the light becomes very harsh very early on in the day.

Almost immediately after setting off from the visitor's centre, there is a sandy bank of earth with lots of holes in. These holes are the nests of Sand Martins and we were able to see them coming and going. They were so fast I didn't even try getting a shot.

To try and avoid shooting into the light, our first stage was to head out to the coastal path and enter one of the hides that faces back inland to watch the waders in the lagoon. The time was already 09:30++ and the sun was getting high, so the light wasn't too good for photos. To make matters worse, quite unbelievably, there was already a heat shimmer in the air that is no good for photography, especially birds at a distance, so it was quite a disappointing outing for taking pics.

Just before entering the hide, I managed to get a quick shot of a hovering Common Kestrel. As you'll come to see from reading this article, the light was ALWAYS wrong, and this shot is no exception.

Upon entering the hide, we immediately sat down and noticed a pair of Eurasian Oystercatchers together with a cute little chick. They would keep a watchful eye over the chick, but he was scampering around at his own free will.

Close by were some nesting Black-headed Gulls. Nice birds to look at, but they are very aggressive towards other birds and this works to their advantage as the number of breeding pairs in the reserve is quite remarkable. The Black-headed Gull is an all-year resident in the UK and is not restricted to coastal areas, as it's easy to spot them all across the country.

While we were observing the Oystercatchers, one Black-headed Gull scurried over and had the Oystercatcher chick in it's bill, only to be chased off by an angry parent. The chick was fortunate on that occasion, but there's no telling whether the Gull's ended up winning. Even after the attack, the Oystercatcher parents continued to let their chick roam free which seemed a bit risky to us.

Also present around the hide area were Barnacle Geese, Common Redshanks, Gadwalls, Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Pied Avocets. Most of the above had chicks with them. Little fluff balls with big feet.

After the hide, we returned back towards the visitors centre (stomach was grumbling, and the smell of Cornish Pasties and coffee was in the air). Along the reed beds, we heard some chirping and cheeping. Up came a Bearded Tit (a.k.a. Bearded Parrotbill) and quickly sank down back into the reeds. Then up came a Reed Warbler for a few seconds, and then the call of the Cetti's Warbler.

After a couple of scones and a Pasty, we headed through the woodland towards the 'Bittern' Hide.

I always wondered if this hide would ever live up to it's name as we'd not seen the said bird on our previous trip to Minsmere, well, on this day, it did.

Just a few minutes after taking a seat in the crowded hide, the Great Bittern was spotted flying in towards us. I'm sure people on the other side of Minsmere will have heard the chorus "BITTERN!!" boom from within our hide as we watched him land amongst some reed beds to the side of the hide and subsequently vanished.

We were able to see a number of Western Marsh-harriers flying around over in this part of the reserve, always a nice sight.

A few minutes later, possibly a second Bittern appeared from amongst the reeds again, to the 20-strong chorus of "BITTERN!" and slowly waded across an open area. I managed to get a few shots, but yes, the light was terrible and couldn't possibly have been any worse.

After the Bittern, we were then busy trying to locate a Cetti's Warbler that must have been nesting nearby to the hide. He kept calling, appearing for a few microseconds and then flying off into the unknown, and returning a few minutes later. I focused the camera on a perch which I'd seen it use twice and waited patiently for his return. Alas, he never came back. Bummer!

Not all was bad, we spotted a deer walking straight towards the hide from the right-hand side of the marshland on a trail. It was a European Roe and it was oblivious to the 20 people crammed inside the hide watching it. It's summer hide showing up in a reddy brown.

From the now aptly named 'Bittern Hide', we ventured off further into the woodland and then out to the meadows/fields to build up an appetite for lunch. Not much to see except a Common Chiffchaff, some Eurasian Linnets and a Green Woodpecker.

Back at the visitors' centre for lunch (Cornish Pasty again, with Bread Pudding and Caramel Slice for dessert, woohoo!), we sat and watched the birds around the feeders and noticed an unlikely visitor.

There's often a Common Pheasant pecking away at the seeds which have dropped on the floor, and the Black-billed Magpies, which I was actually pleased to have got a shot of, as they're often extremely shy, due to the threat from humans, but in Minsmere, they're safe and fairly easy to photograph. This guy was just taking a lunch-time nap (with the sun on his back ), and the image that follows is of a juvenile perched on the edge of the bird bath.

OK, so back to the unlikely visitor. While tucking into the Cornish Pasty, my Mum noticed this bird on the nut feeder and she immediately called out 'Nuthatch!'.

'How unusual', I thought. But sure enough, there he was on the nuts. He didn't hang around long, and we soon noticed that he was feeding a young one in a tree nearby where we were sitting.

A great opportunity for a shot, but look at the light in the photo. Yep, the sun's behind the bird, so it's not as good as it could have been. Bloody light!!

To walk off some of the lunch, we ventured back out to the coastal pathway and headed north for a while, but the birds seemed less active at this time of day, around 3pm.

What did take us by surprise was a Reeve's Muntjac that just wondered across a field without really batting an eyelid at us. Normally, wild deer are easily startled, but not this chap.

It was a pleasant walk nonetheless and we called it a day at about 5pm.

A great day out, and a highly recommended place to visit should you find yourself anywhere near the south east of England.

And that concludes our trip reports for our recent UK trip. 

Thanks for reading

Here is our full bird list for Minsmere Nature Reserve

Click here to read our trip report for Farne Islands, Bempton Cliffs and Blacktoft Sands

Click here to read our report on Bedfordshire, Paxton Pits and Chicksands Woods